


The Veil Falls

by amoama



Category: Elisabeth - Levay/Kunze, Generation Kill
Genre: Community: waywardmixes, Fanmix, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-21
Updated: 2014-02-21
Packaged: 2018-01-13 08:00:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1218646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amoama/pseuds/amoama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nate Fick: The Musical Melodrama. </p><p>Death loves Nate.</p><p>Fanmix and Drabble story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Veil Falls

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings/Notes:** For  Round 5. Uh, I walked off the reservation with this one (and I'm only half sorry).  
>  Warnings for character death. But don't be too sad about it, Death is hot, seductive, and very loveable ~~especially when played by Máté Kamarás~~. He sometimes wears white tassled outfits.  
>  No disrespect intended to the real marines upon whom the characters in the miniseries are based. This is clearly an extreme flight of fancy which bares no relation to them.  
> Credit to OiaHavanah who has subtitled the whole of Elisabeth on YouTube. [You can view it here.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-fiYpib-n8) In the lyrics below I have used her translations. Thank you!!!
> 
> So, ahem, about Elisabeth: Das Musical! It is the best musical ever. It’s so cracky and mental. It has whole songs performed on chess pieces and spinning tea-cups and one song devoted to milk where everyone walks round protesting and waving their milk cans! It’s is awesome I tell you! It is the story of Kaiserin Elisabeth of Austria, although how much of an accurate historical adaptation it is I can’t tell you. I suspect rather little!
> 
> In this musical telling, Elisabeth is brought up wild and free in Bavaria until the Crown Prince chooses her to marry over her sister. Elisabeth is thrown into a world of formality and duty and compromise and she has a horrid mother-in-law. And Death falls in love with her. But she fights against him. As she becomes more and more trapped, forbidden to see her children etc she becomes more depressed/obsessed with death. She tries to stand up for herself, free herself from the constraints her role and marriage have put on her, and to some extent she succeeds but she can’t get away and ends up estranged from her husband and life in general. Unable to help her son, Rudolf, who experiences much the same struggles as her, he ends up committing suicide. Devastated she begs for Death but Death rejects her because she has held him away for so long. The whole story is narrated by a mad Italian, Luchini, who is in fact, her murderer. He finally stabs her in the street, thereby freeing her to fall into Death’s arms. YAY HAPPINESS.
> 
> Definitely the thing you want to crossover with Generation Kill right? RIGHT?? Whatevs. I’m obsessed with the idea. In MY version, although the Generation Kill characters are still recon marines who went to Iraq in 2003, Nate is the equivalent of Kaiserin Elisabeth, Brad is the Crown Prince (natch), Ray is Prince Rudolf their doomed son, Dave “Captain America” McGraw is Luchini, Craig Schwetje is the overbearing Mother-in-Law and Death is Death!!! (but if you want him to look like Alexander Skarsgard too that’s fine with me).
> 
> Welcome to Nathaniel Fick: the Musical Melodrama.
> 
>  
> 
> [Originally posted here for waywardmixes](http://amoama.livejournal.com/9852.html)

  
**The Veil Falls**

_“Laser dots converged together on shadowy figures in the trees, wavered as the Marines shook and rattled in the moving Humvees, and then disappeared as the figure dropped and they moved to settle on the next target. It was an oddly beautiful and well-choreographed dance.”_ N. Fick, One Bullet Away.

_“As a commander, taking full responsibility for my own decisions was one thing, taking it for other people’s decisions was something else. The weight pressed down on me.”_ N. Fick, One Bullet Away.

*

**The Sound of Silence – Simon and Garfunkel**  
Hello darkness, my old friend, I've come to talk with you again  
Because a vision softly creeping left its seeds while I was sleeping  
And the vision that was planted in my brain still remains  
Within the sound of silence

 _McGraw & Death_  
 **Prologue - Original Cast, Elisabeth: Das Musical!**  
What is the meaning of this old song  
That tells of those times when my heart was on fire  
Angels call it joy  
Devils call it pain  
People think: it must be love

 **The Funeral – Band of Horses**  
And to know you is hard and we wonder  
To know you all wrong, we were  
Really too late to call, so we wait for  
Morning to wake you.  
At every occasion I’ll be ready for a funeral.

_McGraw stood above the rabble. He’d climbed up the fire escape of the building above the stage. Two minutes ago Nate Fick had been speaking to a rather academic looking crowd, now McGraw looked down at them all, a seething mass, wild with grief. The cries of “why” barely reached him. He answered them anyway, waving his MK47 madly above his head, repeating over and over his truth to them, “Death told me to. We’re all gonna die. Death told me to.”_

_And then he jumped._

_On the pavement below, his blood mingled with that of his victim._

_We are all going to die._

_Death wins._

*

 _Nate & Death_  
 **Schwarzer Prinz**  
( Here on YouTube *I couldn’t get hold of a good enough quality version to put in the mix :CC)  
Where are you going, black prince?  
Why don’t you stay here?  
I felt comfortable in your arms.  
I felt a longing to let go and be free.  
No one understands me like you.

 **Crazy in Love – Anthony and the Johnsons**  
Such a funny thing for me to try to explain  
How I'm feeling and my pride is the one to blame  
Yeah, cause I know I don't understand  
Just how your love can do what no on else can  
…Your love’s got me looking so crazy right now.

_Death first met Nathaniel Fick when he was eleven. Death found him at the edge of a dark lake, letting his shadow flirt with the water’s surface. Nathaniel smiled at Death in welcome. Then he jumped._

_Death jumped with him and they looked each other in the eye as they plummeted through the water. The lake was deep and Death saw it in Nathaniel’s eyes when he realised he wouldn’t reach the surface in time. Death saw the quick acceptance that stopped Nathaniel’s short arms pushing him upwards and instead reached out to Death._

_Death loved him in that instant because the boy was fearless and because he was his. All his._

_And then the boy’s father grasped his shirt and swept him up into the air._

_Death can be jealous and he doesn’t like to be cheated out of what’s his._

_**_

_Nate hears Tom Ricks speak and falls a little bit in love. Mostly with the idea of himself as one of the marine officers Ricks describes, and in love with the idea of the Marine Corps itself. It feels like something vital, something important. He thinks he could be good at it._

_For the first time in a long time he doesn’t dream about drowning and he doesn’t hear Death calling his name._

*

 _Nate & Death (Nate & Brad)_  
 **Der Letze Tanz -Pia Douwes & Uwe Kröger**  
You’ve turned away but that’s just pretence  
You want to be true to him but you invite me in  
Even in his arms you smile at me…  
The last dance belongs only to me  
The last dance I’ll dance only with you  
And so I wait in the darkness and look out at you.

 **Bullet and a Target – Citizen Cope**  
But what you've done here  
Is put yourself between a bullet and a target  
And it won't be long before  
You're pulling yourself away

_It turns out of course that Death doesn’t need to call out to Nate now that Nate is a marine. Death stares him in the face every day, laughing, assured of swift victory. Nate cannot deny it but every day is an act of defiance that makes him feel strong and powerful even as he embraces Death’s certainty._

*

 _Nate_  
 **Ich gehör nur mir - Maya Hakvoort & Orchester der Vereinigten Bühnen Wien**  
I like to walk on a wire and look down on this world  
I like to skate over ice and see for myself just how long it will hold  
Why do you care the risks I take? I belong to me.

 **Lose your soul – Dead Man’s Bones**  
You’re gonna lose your soul  
You’re gonna lose control  
I get up to this feeling, keeps me on the run.  
I get up in the morning, put my dreams away.

_Nate finds his men constantly put at risk because of incompetent C.O.s, sometimes he knows the orders are malicious as well as stupid. He can’t help himself when he bucks against them._

_It’s almost natural that he should be resented. He’s young, intelligent, wilful, and loved._

_He walks the thin line between moral and legal authority as carefully as he can. He wants to do this, he wants to be professional and obey orders – but he needs those orders to be well thought out and effective. It isn’t till Iraq, under Captain Schwetje that he fully understands the untenable nature of his position._

*

 _Nate & Death_  
 **Wenn ich tanzen will - Maya Hakvoort, Máté Kamarás & Orchester der Vereinigten Bühnen Wien**  
They tied me to strings as a puppet who could dance  
But I will not be a marionette.  
If I want to dance, then I’ll dance in my own way.  
At the edge of the abyss, or only in your sights

 **Nothing Else Matters – Metallica**  
Never opened myself this way  
Life is ours, we live it our way  
So close no matter how far  
Couldn't be much more from the heart  
Forever trusting who we are  
No nothing else matters

_Death laughs at Nate. The Marine Corps asked for his freedom, for his independence, in exchange for unswerving loyalty. Nate gave them willingly, out of duty and love. But it doesn’t make him any less trapped and somehow he knows he’s still serving Death’s cause while he loses track of what his own was._

_At an ambush outside Muwaffiqiya Nate orders his men straight into enemy fire, he dodges bullet after bullet as he runs between vehicles to get his men out alive. Death watches avidly, basking in the warmth of Nate’s open heart._

_Outside Baghdad Nate refuses to direct his men into further danger. For what? He no longer knows what he’s doing in the Marines. He feels Death’s eyes on him and he remembers what it feels like to drown._

_Nate leaves the Corps after Iraq. But he also refuses to keep a weapon in the house. He’s too young to give up._

*

 _Nate & Death, Ray & Death_  
 **Die Schatten werden länger- Lukas Perman, Máté Kamarás & Orchester der Vereinigten Bühnen Wien**  
Time to see the crack in the world  
The shadows are getting longer  
Why is everyone so still?  
What must happen must happen.

 **The Windmills of Your Mind – Dusty Springfield**  
Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own  
Down a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone,  
Like a door that keeps revolving in a half forgotten dream

_Leaving the Corps is like ripping out his heart. He works hard, studies, distracts himself. But he’s separated from those he loves. He loved his men like sons, like brothers; a friendship and understanding so intense that its absence leaves him fractured._

_He does good in the world, he speaks truth to power and he doesn’t think about Death. But he tries not to let himself think about his men either. Not Mike, or Evan or John, not Ray or Walt or any of them. Not Brad. Never Brad._

_He separates himself from these guys who trusted him, to stop the darkness that clings to him from reaching them too._

_He knows some of them are struggling now, like he is, but tells himself he’s not the LT anymore because he doesn’t trust himself to help them any longer._

*

 _Ray & Nate_  
 **Wenn ich dein Spiegel wär - Original Cast, Elisabeth: Das Musical!**  
So weary of the world that’s beginning to die.  
If I were your mirror then you would see yourself in me.  
You pull me closer and leave me.

 **Shadows – Warpaint**  
Though I'm afraid, I know I'm afraid, I'm drunk and I'm tired  
Afraid that I have made a mistake  
Now there's nothing here for me  
The things you once told me  
The thoughts you once gave me  
Sounded like the wind in my ears  
What was the answer  
You wanted me to find out?

_Ray comes to him in DC late one night. Ray’s drunk, eyes sunken and desperate. All Nate sees is himself, his own feelings, his own trapped misery reflected in Ray. He can’t help either of them. Death is the only freedom but Nate and Death aren’t on speaking terms._

_Nate, Ray, Death_  
 **Totenklage - Pia Douwes & Uwe Kröger**  
You were like me, You needed me, I failed you so that I could be free.  
How can you ever forgive me?  
Come sweet death, cursed death, release me!

Death: Too late. I don’t want you. Not at all! I don’t need you.

 **Ghosts that we Knew – Mumford and sons**  
You saw my pain, washed out in the rain  
Broken glass, saw the blood run from my veins  
But you saw no fault no crack in my heart  
And you kneel beside my hope torn apart

_When Nate hears about Ray’s death the guilt is overwhelming. That determination he’d felt as a lieutenant to keep his men alive, bring them home, it turns out he’d never let go of it like he thought. He still feels wholly responsible. He feels like nothing in his life has been worth it because he failed at this. He should have sacrificed everything a thousand times over, he should have reached out to Ray. He should of, he should of. Ray’s dead. Death has him._

_It’s been years but Nate calls out to Death, he begs for Death to come to him, to release him._

_He sees now, belatedly, the mirrored paths he and Ray have trod. Nate defying Death, Ray embracing him. Both of them have walked side-by-side with Death._

*

 _Nate & Brad_  
 **Boote in der Nacht - Original Cast, Elisabeth: Das Musical!**  
Love can do much but sometimes love is not enough  
Faith is strong, but sometimes faith can be deceiving  
We wanted a miracle but one didn’t happen for us.  
We are like two ships in the night  
Each has its own target and its own cargo  
We meet on the sea and then comes the difficult farewell  
But what drives us is not ours to control.

 **O0Oo0Oo – Oberhofer**  
And I know that you love me  
But I'm just too damn hungry  
For loving that I don't need  
If you wish that you could count for every inch  
And every ounce of everything that you leak

_Nate feels his grip on the world loosen. He goes on speaking tours round the world but doesn’t engage well with his audiences anymore._

_Brad comes to visit him once. He stands on Nate’s doorstep with his eyes full of reproach._

_Brad’s speech boils down to this: “You shouldn’t have left us.” And even now, Nate knows he’s saying, “I love you. Come back.”_

_Nate wants to say he loves him too. He looks at Brad and feels the truth of it. But Nate knows it means nothing to Brad if he can’t go back with him. And Nate can’t. He still won’t._

_It was life that killed Ray, not Death. Nate can’t be a part of that life. He has set aside that heartbreak of leaving the Marine Corps. Brad doesn’t feel it the same way Nate does, or Ray did. Brad was born for this, raised to it. A warrior and a professional. It hurts him but not in the same way. It angers and appals Brad when things go wrong but Brad knows no other way to be and so he deals. In one way, Nate and Ray could always see further. Death is the ultimate escape and Nate longs for it more and more. It’s all he sees and Brad is a spec on the horizon, ghosting along in another direction. Nate feels sad looking at him - not for what might have been – but for what could never have been._

_Brad stands on Nate’s doorstep, but never reaches him._

*

 _Nate & Death_  
 **Der Schleier fällt - Maya Hakvoort, Máté Kamarás & Orchester der Vereinigten Bühnen Wien**  
Erase the memories within me  
Give my soul a home  
Let the world sink  
I want to drown with you in nothingness  
Rise again with you as fire  
And perish in eternity.

 **Rapture – Antony and the Johnsons**  
Slowly, softly  
Falling, falling  
Down in silence to the ground  
All the world is falling, falling  
All the blue  
From me and you  
Teardrops falling to the ground

 

_Death doesn’t agree if you tell him he’s always the end of the story. He’s a part of the story from the very beginning. Lovers fear death, he’s the one who can separate them, tear them apart too early if he cares to, let them linger to see love dwindle if he wants to. It is Death’s shadow that makes them cling together, that makes them precious to each other._

_If you ask him, he’ll tell you, “I’ve loved.” And he’ll claim it was truer and more completely than any love you could contemplate for yourself._

_Death loves wholly without hope of reward. The minute his love succumbs to him, to his arms, his kiss. That’s the minute the object of his love ceases to exist and Death finds his arms empty once more. Death takes and takes and takes, holding his loneliness at bay with each one instant of love. And if sometimes he watches too closely the life leading to him, wraps himself too firmly around his love so that their life is shrouded in his darkness, is too intoxicated by the promise of capitulation. How can he be blamed?_

_Death took Nate Fick in his arms, finally, desperately, when he found he couldn’t wait any longer for his love. The kiss was the sweetest he’d ever tasted, the bitterest he’d ever know. Nate gave himself up to Death whole hearted, like he’d never been in life. Happy, at last, to drown in the nothingness of Death._

**Thin Air – Aqualung**  
Tell me that you'll love me forever  
And go without another word  
With our hands holding tight together  
Out into the new world  
When you're standing on the edge of nothing  
Tell me I was right to care

*

So I did two zips on the off chance some of you don't want to listen to the Elisabeth songs. ;) I like the mix both ways so have at it with whichever one you think you'll prefer!  
[ZIP FOR SHORT MIX](http://anonym.to/?https://app.box.com/s/ovzyw69fditcvw2dl0t9)  
[ZIP FOR MIX WITH SONGS FROM ELISABETH](http://anonym.to/?https://app.box.com/s/a6mnefavt66srgdk59x2)  
[Listen on 8tracks](http://8tracks.com/theotheramo/the-veil-falls)


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